Adding Antique Beadboard to Kitchen Island in Little Pine Cottage

Adding antique beadboard to the kitchen island in our little pine cottage started to bring the whole project together.

man installing antique beadboard on handcrafted kitchen island

HOW WE GOT THE ANTIQUE BEADBOARD

We talked about how we got the beautiful beadboard gems in a prior blog post. Our neighbor was gracious enough to part ways with the original beadboard from her own historic house. It had been sitting in a storage shed for some time and was ready to be cleaned up and restored back to its original glory.

That’s where we come in. I feel like at this point we should be called the salvaging couple. We tend to salvage a lot of things for our renovation and reuse them to maintain the time period of our historic cottage.

ANTIQUE RESTORATIONS

I think we’ve all seen the trends of restoring old fixer uppers and giving them a modern farmhouse vibe. To give the feeling of living in a country farmhouse, yet in the suburbs or urban areas.

Our little cottage is placed in the middle of a cute and quaint historic downtown area. I’m thinking it could almost be the set of a small town Hallmark movie. We have a park and all the downtown amenities right in our neighborhood. And even a metro train system.

Yet, one thing our neighborhood prides itself on is restoring our old houses while preserving the historical nature of them. And not just filling them up with modern things, but using the old and original where possible. That has been the goal in our own renovations as well.

We have a heritage commission that approves all of our outdoor updates and renovations. However, they do not monitor the inside of our homes. That is a good thing. But, if they did~ they would find a sort of makeshift local museum inside. The fruits of our salvaging and reclaimed labor!

I do hope that one day we would be awarded a plaque of some sort for all of our preservation efforts. This little old neglected cottage has been brought to life, but not with all the modern fancy stuff. Instead with the old rugged character filled stuff that was built to last. And with all the TLC we poured into it, could maybe last another hundred years more.

ADDING ANTIQUE BEADBOARD TO KITCHEN ISLAND

It was time to finish off the kitchen island since we completed the kitchen countertops. The handcrafted butcher block countertops were made with old reclaimed wood. We would stick with the theme here as we wrap the island with more reclaimed wood. This time beadboard.

It was a great addition to the kitchen and really the whole house which is filled with reclaimed shiplap too. Such old antique gems filling our space. It makes us really happy and brings us so much joy!

This was another handmade build by yours truly, my hubby Nate. He used the beadboard he restored and cleaned for the task. It had to be cut down to fit under the countertop. And also fit around the corners. It was a custom build like many of the projects around here.

The breadboard has a tongue and groove to it so that had to be factored in too. Sometimes with the older reclaimed wood, the tongue and/or groove could be warped as it was in our case at times. You just have to do your best to work with it.

Nate worked diligently to install each piece of beadboard next to each other using the tongue and groove. And also making sure that all the pieces were the same height across. Then he placed the butcher block countertop back on to give me a sneak peek of the results.

It was looking so great and even the random colors of the reclaimed wood of paint over the years looked so cool. We debated on whether or not we should paint over it or just preserve it. You will see what we ended up doing in the next blog and video.

man pointing to antique beadboard on handcrafted kitchen island

BUILDING ANTIQUE BEADBOARD CABINET DOOR

The next thing Nate worked on was building a little door at the end in the corner. He used the same reclaimed beadboard to construct the door. It would blend in with the rest of the beadboard he was installing all around it.

You can watch our video to catch more of the details of how he worked on the cabinet door project. We have realized that there are many ways that we can use the antique beadboard to add character and creativity to our renovations.

man building antique beadboard cabinet door on handcrafted kitchen island

He also points out how the antique beadboard was made out of old growth pine trees. Meaning they were cut from mature pine trees instead of younger ones like they do with pine nowadays. The wood grain on the old growth pine is just beautiful. We have learned to really appreciate our old growth little pine cottage. That’s what it’s becoming anyway.

man showing antique beadboard old growth pine wood grain

The wood is harder and more dense because it’s old growth pine. Over about a hundred year old wood. This is expensive wood and you have to hunt for it to salvage. Such a gem to add to our preservation efforts. It has great meaning to us to bring these old beautiful gems back to life.

Adding antique beadboard to the kitchen island in our little pine cottage brought such character and creativity into our home. It was a joy to add more salvaged gems in this cute little cottage!

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic cottage mostly on our own~ while working full time jobs! Stay tuned for more progress updates ahead. Read more about us here.

You can also watch a video about this here.